Tragic news story

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

Been reading a bit about the English millionaire who appears to have shot his wife and 15 year old daughter before burning them alive (with himself) in their mansion. I read how he had set a fire at three different areas of the mansion but before doing so shot dead all the pet animals including a horse. He also blocked the electric gates to his mansion so emergency services wouldn't be able to get to the scene as soon as they would have liked.

Aparently his business went bust and his house (worth 1.2mil GBP or about 2.1mil USD) was being repossessed and he was in pretty severe debt.

Really sad.

BBC News

If you see photos of the house remains, it really makes you think how extreme the fires were or how long it took to stop the fires. The house is more ore less completely gone.

digitalMedia

a.k.a. dM

Posts: 5146

Loc: SC-USA

3+ Months Ago

I'm confused. Have they found the remains, or not? Do they presume they will find the remains. Your accounting seems specific while the news coverage seems ambiguous. *shrug*

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

The damage was so bad that they had to make sure the building was safe to go into before they could search for the bodies, so the family is missing presumed dead at the moment. They have found two bodies, but this is the first day they've actually been able to explore bits of the ruined house.

As it says on the article it could take weeks before a full search is done.

digitalMedia

a.k.a. dM

Posts: 5146

Loc: SC-USA

3+ Months Ago

Okay, I read they found two bodies, but I didn't see who they had belonged to. All the other articles I read kept refering to them as "missing" only.

That is a tragic story.

joebert

Fart Bubbles

Posts: 13506

Loc: Florida

3+ Months Ago

The story appears to have all of the classic signs of a faked death.

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

One of the two bodies found yesterday was the wife who was shot in the head. The other body found appears to be male, yet until things are confirmed they won't claim it as being the husband.

What happened to the daughter?

digitalMedia

a.k.a. dM

Posts: 5146

Loc: SC-USA

3+ Months Ago

That guy must have been REALLY desperate and REALLY short on sanity. He didn't just lose it, he was consumed by evil.

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

Body number three found. Two as yet remain unidentified.

Bogey

Genius

Posts: 8417

Loc: USA

3+ Months Ago

That is sad. This was a loose-loose situation for the arson fiend.

celandine

Mastermind

Posts: 2008

Loc: Belgrade, Serbia

3+ Months Ago

jesus that is awful... money does strange things to people.

maybe a strange place to share a personal story but my friend (same age as me - 29) is currently going through a divorce. we got married at the same time, two years ago, about two months apart, except I had been dating my husband 10 years before we got hitched, and she had only been going out with hers for a couple of years. still, that's four years of life with somebody, presumably sharing lives and getting to know each other.

anyhow about a month ago they were supposed to put down a deposit for an apartment, under favourable conditions that his company was offering. so her family scraped together about 2,500 euro, they borrowed a few thousand from friends, and he was supposed to make up the rest of the down payment from his savings. which he presumably had.

anyhow I won't bore you with the whole story, but in the following weeks she started to discover, bit by bit, that all that money wasn't paid into any apartment down payment, that there are other large sums of money that her husband owes to a large number of friends and colleagues, but also to some pretty nasty people who really want their money back right now. She also found out he wasn't paying the utility bills for months, and that he had no savings at all (I suppose that part came as not much of a surprise, after everything...)

all in all she and her friends and family came out of the whole thing about 10,000 euro short, which for serbian conditions is a vast amount of money. there's no telling what else he owes, and to whom.

the funny thing in the whole mess is that he keeps saying to her that the reason he took all that money was because 'they deserved a better lifestyle' (this is dubious, because their lifestyle was very frugal. we still can't really figure out where all the money went. he obviously got mixed up with some pretty bad people) But even taking that notion at face value, we were all sitting together - five or six friends who've all been hanging out together since elementary school - reminiscing about the days when we each had a couple of bucks in our pockets (sanction years, everybody was flat broke, and we were in high school....) and we never minded it. we never sat around saying 'oh gosh if we only had money'. we had fun in those days. and we still have fun now. yeah a few of us have been lucky and are currently quite well off financially - but that was never what it was all about....

I don't really know why this rant. I suppose the whole thing has been upsetting me, and it rang a bell with this man who thought he should take away the life of his wife and child just because of financial troubles. I suppose if you have millions and then you lose them it can seem like a big deal, but I'm pretty sure they could have lived even without the millions. and they could have been quite happy too.

this kind of thing is one of the reasons why people just shouldn't be allowed to earn over a certain amount.... nobody needs that kind of money. it leads into either overindulgence, greed and a skewed sense of self-worth, or just plain out trouble (QED above...)

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

The thing about this though, assuming he did kill his wife and daughter (as yet unconfirmed and it isn't really appropriate to comment on what still is only speculation) even if he did live life as it were and he lost his home and business he would most likely have had to declare bankruptcy. The thing that would have hurt the most about this is he wouldn't legally be allowed to manage or own a business again within the UK (possibly overseas too?), so there was no clear indication he could ever become as wealthy as he once was.

Assuming he did what people believe he did then it is just incredibly sick and deeply disturbing for the rest of the family. What drives someone to be so selfish where they deny their young daughter a life of her own, let alone his wife?

celandine

Mastermind

Posts: 2008

Loc: Belgrade, Serbia

3+ Months Ago

why is not being incredibly wealthy such a terrible thing?

a relative of mine in canada had to declare bankruptcy (she tried to run a dentist's office but was conned by the man who sold the practice to her and ended up unable to pay the bank loan), and she's doing fine now - plus, it was only her who declared bankruptcy, so her husband can still apply for loans or run businesses (and if she wanted to, she could run a business and have it formally listed in his name...)

I guess my point is, surely he had better options than double homicide + suicide.....

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

It was noted he had been at a BBQ the night before, so no doubt there was some drinks, some strong words mentioned at the BBQ, and a deeply worrying fear of what could be struck him where he got into the state he was in.

Anyhoo, i am very confused as to what it takes to become a "detective" fpr the English police now. Let me quote the first paragraph from a recently added BBC article...

BBC wrote:

Detectives believe a businessman killed his wife and daughter before setting fire to their mansion and then killing himself, police have said.

I guess the key word here is "believe", this suggests that they think he did what i've pretty much been thinking since the day i first heard about the story.

I should join the police.

righteous_trespasser

Scuffle

Posts: 6229

Loc: South-Africa

3+ Months Ago

I believe that it would be possible for any person to become a detective with skills like that ...

Celandine, that's really actually scary ... very much so ...

celandine

Mastermind

Posts: 2008

Loc: Belgrade, Serbia

3+ Months Ago

yeah it is really scary actually.... we just all got together today to move all her stuff out of their apartment... and found out that he already sold off her microwave, their big tv, HER oil painting by famous serbian painter, and the Playstation he borrowed from my husband..... thankfully it was only a 2........

SB

Moderator

Posts: 8748

Loc: Aberdeen, Scotland

3+ Months Ago

At times like those you must be honest and determine how much of the problem occured during the marriage. I say this because if there wasn't any problems initially then it suggests there was some love in the relationship before and it looks less and less likely that he was marrying her just to get money.

I don't know what sort of reaction everyone is giving this guy, but whilst i understand some pain and stress has come from this he is the man with the real problem, and the theiving and lies were all through fear of circumstances that could have happened.

As was the case with the Foster Family murders and suicide, it does show you how far some people can go to extremes like this to avoid the inevitable. It hurts me to say this, but whilst i feel alot of pain and anger towards the husband and dad for the murdering i also feel alot of sympathy for him. I feel sympathy because one mistake was going to cost him and his family the lifestyle they had grown accustom to, the lifestyle afforded his daughter some horses and a great life that would have been torn apart and probably scarred her had the dad not murder his family and let the creditors take control.

There was a follow up story with interviews from Christopher Fosters mother and words from his wifes brother about the devastating news.

BBC News

Some of Kirstie's friends have put together a video and uploaded it to YouTube. I think it's important to remember here that the video was put together about a week after the murders and before any official confirmation that the third body found was that of Kirsties. Nearly two weeks after the fire and the third body is still not identified officially. You can see the video by clicking the link below...

YouTube

Robin007

Beginner

Posts: 40

3+ Months Ago

Two days ago I was a witness of a terrible incident. About 2 a.m. Bentley was moving about 200 kilometers per hour and knocked down some girl who was driving motorbike R1. The girl was cut into four pieces and motorbike into 2 piece. Besides, three cars was absolutely destroyed. Very horrible accident.

suzie

Guru

Posts: 1148

Loc: England

3+ Months Ago

Why not just do himself in the selfish blastard

These kind of people make me wanna spew. Its alway the case where they take the family with them when they commit suicide. They don't have the balls to die alone.

The daughter, and even the wife had their lives in front of them till he decided to play God.